The Avro 636 was a single-engined

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

fighter- trainer built by Avro in the mid-1930s. Four were built for the

Irish Air Corps "Watchful and Loyal" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment = , equipment_label = , battles = ''see list of wars'' , decorations = , battle_honours = , battle_honours_label = , fl ...

Development

The Avro 636 was designed in November 1934 by

Roy Chadwick Roy Chadwick, CBE, FRSA, FRAeS (30 April 1893 – 23 August 1947) was an aircraft design engineer for the Avro Company. Born at Marsh Hall Farm, Farnworth, Widnes, the son of the mechanical engineer Charles Chadwick, he was the chief designer ...

, Avro's chief designer as a one or two-seat fighter-trainer, and was planned to reproduce the flying characteristics of single-seat fighters. It had a similar structure to the

Tutor TUTOR, also known as PLATO Author Language, is a programming language developed for use on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in roughly 1965. TUTOR was initially designed by Paul Tenczar for use in ...

, with a welded steel tube

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraf ...

. The aircraft was designed to be operated as a single or two seater, with the provision for fitting two forward firing .303 in (7.7 mm)

Vickers machine gun The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a water-cooled .303 British (7.7 mm) machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The gun was operated by a three-man crew but typically required more men to move and o ...

Operational history

Four Avro 636s were ordered by the

in December 1934. These aircraft were powered by old

Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar The Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar was an aircraft engine developed by Armstrong Siddeley. The Jaguar was a petrol-fuelled air-cooled 14-cylinder two-row radial engine design. The Jaguar III was first used in 1923, followed in 1925 by the Jaguar ...

IVC engines, which had originally been purchased by the Irish in 1930 for use in

Vickers Vespa The Vickers Vespa was a British army cooperation biplane designed and built by Vickers Limited in the 1920s. While not adopted by Britain's Royal Air Force, small numbers were bought by the Irish Free State and Bolivia, the latter of which used ...

army co-operation aircraft. Although the Jaguar IVC powered aircraft was planned to be designated as the Avro 667, they were always referred to as Avro 636s. The four aircraft were delivered in August 1935, and remained in service for several years.

Variants

;Avro 636: Basic design, originally planned to be powered by 420 hp (313 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar IV engine. ;Avro 636A: Version powered by 680 hp (510 kW)

Armstrong Siddeley Panther The Armstrong Siddeley Panther was a 27-litre 14-cylinder twin-row air-cooled Radial engine, radial aero engine developed by Armstrong Siddeley. It was originally named the Jaguar Major.Lumsden 2003, p.72. Applications * Armstrong Whitworth A ...

XI engine. ;Avro 667: Version powered by unsupercharged 460 hp (340 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar IVC. Four built for Irish Air Corps. Known as Avro 636 in service.

Operators

; *

Specifications (Avro 667)

References

{{Avro aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft 1930s British military trainer aircraft

636 Year 636 ( DCXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 636 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became t ...

Biplanes Aircraft first flown in 1935